Buzzword
We need to touch base to align our strategy with the FY24 deliverables and our KPI SLAs by COP today
buzzword
buzz-werd
noun
A fashionable word in a particular field
I love words. The fact that I foist a blog about words on my colleagues every week should be testament to that much. I love words for their use, absolutely, because there’s nothing quite like whipping out the mot juste. But I also love words for their own sake. ‘Grithbreach’ might not have been the mot juste since the end of the Anglo-Saxon period, but the knowledge is its own reward.
Some words, however, really get my hackles up. I am a chronic eye-roller at the best of times, but never more so than when reading or listening to language that is stuffed full of buzzwords, particularly the corporate kind.
‘Buzzword’, as a word in itself, comes from the 1940s and the United States, where students at Harvard Business school created lists of words to help them in their studies. How it came to take off quite so successfully is anyone’s guess.
As I see it, buzzwords serve two related functions: First, they make deeply boring and trivial communication seem deep and hard to understand, thereby giving their user the appearance of special knowledge. Second, this impression of arcane knowledge is designed to highlight the divide between those who know (what the buzzwords mean and how to use them) and the rest of us, the little people.
I have been waging a seemingly one-man war against corporate nonsense for some years now (with limited success, it must be said), and so I have provided a list of the corporate buzzwords that most irritate me, in the hopes that someone might think twice next time they are tempted to use them.
Action (verb)
There’s nothing wrong with the word ‘do’. If, after a meeting, you want me to send someone an email, or complete some other tedious task, asking me to ‘action’ it does not actually make the task more exciting.
Cascade (verb)
A recent addition to my dictionary of corporate nonsense, and appearing seemingly out of nowhere. No idea what it actually means. Something you whip out when things affect different levels of the organisation.
Change (noun)
Abstract to the point of meaninglessness. What sort of change? Are you removing the decaf coffee from the kitchens? Are you introducing some dreadful new system we all have to use? Or are you shutting down one of the regional offices and making a bunch of people redundant?
COP (extra point if it's pronounced as a word rather than an initialism)
Did you cherish a desire to become a premiership footballer? Or perhaps you dreamt of treading the boards with the Royal Shakespeare Company? ‘Close of play’ is a sporting (or perhaps theatrical) term referring to the end of a match. Goodness knows I can understand the urge to inject a little excitement into the humdrum workday, but just say ‘the end of the day’.
Drill down
Horrible thoughts of dentistry. ‘Examine in depth’ may be longer, but thoroughly less unpleasant.
Deliverable (noun)
Etymologically, ‘deliverable’ should mean ‘something that is delivered’. Pizza, perhaps. Or Amazon parcels. Next time I fancy a takeaway I shall tell my flatmate that I am ordering a deliverable. In the corporate sense it appears to mean ‘thing produced’.
Learning(s) (noun)
Of all the words on this list, ‘learning’ is perhaps the one for which my hatred burns with greatest intensity, and that’s saying something. As a noun (which is never pluralised) ‘learning’ should be used in its most abstract sense to refer to the process of acquiring knowledge through study or experience. The plural ‘learnings’ sounds awkward and childish, and anyone who uses the noun in the same sentence as the verb - ‘learnings learned’ - should be dragged into the north sea and left there.
Touch base
Another sporting term that has wormed its way into the business world. In the world of baseball, players have to ‘touch base’ in order to be safe or record an out.
Upskill
Another childish creation. What’s wrong with ‘train’?
I could go on, but this is more than enough to be getting on with. Are there any buzzwords that set your teeth on edge? If we all band together we can make this a series and banish corporate nonsense for good.